The Traveller's Magazine
The city of Paris has decided to end its relationship with “love locks.” The small tokens left by countless lovers on its bridges, in particular the Pont des Arts.
For years, visitors from around the world have attached locks to the bridge and thrown the keys away into the Seine, marking their love for each other. While you can love a “love lock” around the world, Paris is no doubt one of the most popular places to lock your love.
While the trend is a fairly new one, only really arriving in Paris in 2008, the locks didn’t start causing any trouble until a few years ago in 2012 when parts of the fencing on the Pont des Arts started crumbling under the weight of the locks. Today there are more than 700,000 locks, with an estimated combined weight of 20 elephants!
The city has decided to cut off all the locks in an effort to save its heritage sites. The bridge will be closed for one week while the city removes the locks and later in the fall protective glass panels will be installed across the bridge to stop visitors from adding more locks.
